To the dismay of California’s people of faith, the California Department of Managed Health Care has reclassified abortion as a “basic health service” under the Affordable Care Act and ordered all insurance plans in the state to begin covering surgical abortions immediately. Even churches are not exempt from funding abortions. Operation Rescue opposes this policy that forces men and women who deeply oppose abortion on religious grounds to fund surgical abortion in violation of their faith, and encourages others to oppose it as well.

What a mess. What a God-awful mess the new reproductive technologies in general—and commercial surrogacy, in particular—are making of family life. What a legal, emotional, and moral mess. The Center for Bioethics and Culture asked me to sort out one such circumstance from Tennessee that went all the way to the state Supreme Court–and it still isn’t resolved. From, “A Case of Surrogacy’s Gordion Knot:”

Foreign affairs officials say they do not believe any federal politicians advocated on behalf of an Australian couple who abandoned one of their surrogate babies in India. Earlier this month, the ABC revealed an Australian couple who had twins via a surrogate mother in India decided to leave one of the children behind.

The head of Christian Schools Australia has berated NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli for insulting religious schools by suggesting some turn their back on needy students despite their wealth. Mr Piccoli outraged Stephen O'Doherty, a former state Liberal education spokesman, by reigniting the debate about the responsibilities private schools have to support students with behavioural problems or disabilities.

Victorian GPs would be trained to recognise the symptoms of problem gambling and direct addicts to help services under a plan by the state’s responsible gambling body to increase treatment rates. Figures show more than 90 per cent of the state’s 30,000 problem gamblers do not seek formal counselling, but visit their GPs more often than non-addicts.

In a rare court victory for supporters of true marriage, a U.S. District Judge this week upheld the legality of Puerto Rico’s marriage protection law, which defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

Although religious freedom conditions around the globe are worsening, Americans should see this fact as a cause for motivation rather than despair, said a leading scholar on the issue. “I wish that I could say there has been some improvement in the conditions of religious freedom in the world, but I’m afraid the opposite is true: it’s deteriorated,” said Robert P. George, vice chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Two young daughters of a Pakistani Christian woman on death row for 'blasphemy' today told how they were tortured by a mob of religious fanatics because of their mother's alleged comments. Asia Bibi has been sentenced to hang in Pakistan after she was accused of making disparaging remarks about the prophet Mohammed during an argument.

G.K. Chesterton relates the story of "a large and heavy and quiet boy, and phenomenally silent" who one day surprised his tutor by suddenly asking "in an explosive manner": "What is God?" The schoolmaster was probably as much surprised by the animation displayed in this unobtrusive sluggard as by the precociousness of the inquiry, but the boy's family were well used to young Tommy's excitement about such questions.